Songket

Songket is a fabric that belongs to the brocade family of textiles of Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. It is hand-woven in silk or cotton, and intricately patterned with gold or silver threads. The metallic threads stand out against the background cloth to create a shimmering effect. In the weaving process the metallic threads are inserted in between the silk or cotton weft threads.

 The historical records of use of gold thread in Indonesia and Malaysia is somewhat sketchy. Songket weaving is historically associated with areas of Malay settlement, and the production techniques could have been introduced by Indian or Arab merchants. It is not certain as to the songket's place of origin.

In Indonesian tradition, songket is associated with Srivijaya, a wealthy 7th to 13th century maritime trading empire based on Sumatra, due to the fact that Palembang is the famous songket producer in Indonesia. Songket is a luxurious textile that required some amount of real gold leafs to be made gold threads and hand-woven into exquisite fabrics, hictorically the gold mines are located in Sumatra hinterland; Jambi and Minangkabau highlands. Although gold threads was found buried in the Srivijaya ruins in Sumatra, along with unpolished rubies and pieces of gold plate, there is no corroborating evidence that the local weavers used gold threads as early as 600s to early 700s CE.Songket probably developed in later period somewhere in Sumatra.

Categories: Clothes